Is Police Behavior Getting Worse ? Data Selection and the Measurement of Policing Harms
RESEARCH
Two high-profile , controversial officer-involved shootings in 2014 led to increased public interest in and media scrutiny of police officer use of force across the country . This increased awareness of officers ’ use of force led some to believe police misconduct was on the rise . Others claimed use of video technology including body worn cameras and cell phones was increasing awareness .
The lack of a comprehensive use of force database limits policy makers and researchers from properly evaluating these trends . Information from citizen complaints collected by larger agencies could be utilized to assess possible trends , but these agencies structure their data differently making it difficult to examine . In addition , many agencies purge records after a few years . Also , civilian complaints tend to focus on failure to provide a service or discourtesy and not on behaviors that lead to lawsuits . Big-city bias by the news media adversely affects the portrayal police misconduct across the United States . Three cities , New York , Los Angeles , and Chicago account for one-third to one-half of the newspaper coverage of police misconduct , but these agencies employ less than 12 % of the officers in the United States and account for only 4 % of civilian deaths .
One commonly used data source has been reviews of lawsuits and payouts . Still , this does not enable proper evaluation of the frequency and seriousness of events . This paper provides one of the first attempts to demonstrate the difference between long-term trends in police behavior and citizens ’ response to it .
The authors utilized the largest and most detailed database of police insurance claims ever employed in academic research . Using 23 years of claims with 350 small and mid-size agencies in one state by a single insurer between 1994 and 2017 , this study evaluated 2,858 claims , of which 2,590 had been closed . The average population of the jurisdictions in this study was approximately 9,000 citizens . This provides greater relevance for police leaders since 70 percent of law enforcement agencies serve populations of less than 10,000 persons .
The data from more than 20 years was broken into eight categories : Force , Sexual , Property Harm , Seizure of Person , Seizure of Property , Search , Discrimination , Negligence or Other . “ Of the 2,590 closed claims 32 % involved a lawsuit and 30 % involved some type of payout .”
Recognizing the recent focus on alleged officer misconduct , the 20-year period covered in the dataset enabled researchers to better assess the number , type , and resolutions of claims and better evaluate changes that are occurring . They found there was a 24.2 % decline in the average number of claims from the 1990 ’ s ( N = 135 ) to the 2010 ’ s ( N = 106 ). Interestingly , payouts began to increase in 2014 .
SUMMER . 2021 77